2016 Sony World Photography Awards

Landscape winner

The world's largest photography competition, the 2016 Sony World Photography Awards announced its Grand Prize winners.

Iranian photographer Asghar Khamseh, who works for the Mehr News Agency, won the "Iris d'Or Photographer of the Year and the $25,000 prize for a powerful series of portraits of acid attack victims, "Fire of Hatred."

Here are the winners and finalists, chosen from a record-breaking 230,103 entries, in 14 documentary and fine art professional categories -- each judged on a body of work. They winners were selected from a shortlist, announced in February 2016. Winners and shortlisted work will be on exhibit at Somerset House, London from April 22-May 8, 2016.

Landscape winner - "Land of Nothingness"

Maroesjka Lavigne, Belgium

A country named after a desert. One of the least densely populated places on earth, Namibia's landscape draws you in, through a vast brown plain of scorched earth, and steers you over the white surface of a salt pan to finally arrive in the gold tones of the sand dunes.

Credit: Maroesjka Lavigne

Campaign winner

"TransBrasil"

Jetmir Idrizi, Kosovo

Transgender people in Brazil express their gender identities in many different ways. Some people use their dress, behavior and mannerisms to live as the gender that feels right for them. Some people take hormones and may have surgery to change their body so it matches their gender identity. Some transgender people reject the traditional understanding of gender as divided between just "masculine" and "feminine" so they identify just as transgender, or gender queer, gender fluid, or something else.

Credit: Jetmir Idrizi/Courtesy 2016 Sony World Photography Awards

Campaign winner

Jetmir Idrizi, Kosovo

"TransBrasil" is an ongoing project in Brazil which aims to deepen understanding about gender identities issues.

Credit: Jetmir Idrizi/Courtesy 2016 Sony World Photography Awards

Campaign - 3rd place

"#365, Unpacked"

Antoine Repesse, France

In France, people throw away approximately 365 kg of waste per person, per year. The series is the result of four years of work, during which the photographer stopped throwing away his recycled waste, and collected it instead.

Credit: Antoine Repesse/Courtesy 2016 Sony World Photography Awards

Photographer of the Year - Asghar Khamseh

Contemporary Issues winner

"Fired of Hatred" series

Asghar Khamseh, Iran

Shirin Mohamad, 18, was attacked with acid for refusing a suitor in Tehran in 2012.

The violent act of acid throwing targets women and children mainly. These attacks are committed with the intent to disfigure, maim and destroy the social life and future of the victim. This type of violence happens in cases of family conflicts, rejected marriage proposals, for revenge and divorce requests.

The jury chair, Dominique Green, praised the hard-hitting examination of the social issues around the violent crime.

Credit: Asghar Khamseh/Courtesy 2016 Sony World Photography Awards

Photographer of the Year

Professional Contemporary Issues winner

"Fired of Hatred" series

Asghar Khamseh, Iran

Mohsen Mortazavi, 34, an acid victim who was brutally knifed and attacked with three liters of acid on his first day of work in 2012.

In addition physical and psychological damages, victims are faced with the experience of social stigma and blame.

Credit: Asghar Khamseh/Courtesy 2016 Sony World Photography Awards

Environment winner

"Eagle Hunters of Western China" series

Kevin Frayer, Canada

The Eagle Hunting festival in Xinjiang, organied by the local hunting community, is part of an effort to promote and grow traditional hunting practices for new generations in the mountainous region of western China that borders Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia.

The training and handling of the large birds of prey follows a strict set of ancient rules that Kazakh eagle hunters are preserving for future generations.

Campaign - 2nd place

At annual conventions in the U.S., hunters will book hunts, select animals, professional hunters, and taxidermist services. Here at the Safari Club International Convention in Reno a taxidermist displays his work from a clients previous trip to Africa.

There are now more captive Lions in South Africa than wild ones; approx 8000 compared to 2000 living in the wild. Many of these animals are reared specifically to be shot and owned by wealthy tourists from Europe and North America.

Credit: David Chancellor/Courtesy 2016 Sony World Photography Awards

Archtecture - Third place

Stephan Zirwes, Germany

"The Pools" series is a study of water, one of the most precious resources for life on our planet. Zirwes' intent is to show the important resource in contrast to being a place for entertainment and the incredible waste of drinking water.

Credit: Stephan Zirwes/Courtesy 2016 Sony World Photography Awards

Conceptual winner

"Greetings from Mars"

Julien Mauve, France

Two "astronauts" take a selfie in the Grand Canyon.

Credit: Julien Mauve/Courtesy 2016 Sony World Photography Awards

Conceptual winner

"Greetings from Mars"

Julien Mauve, France

The images in this series were taken in several places including the Grand Canyon, Canyonland and Death Valley.

Credit: Julien Mauve/Courtesy 2016 Sony World Photography Awards

Current Affairs winner

"In Search of the European Dream" series

Angelos Tzortzinis, Greece

An Afghan refugee carries his child as he arrived on a beach on the Greek island of Kos, after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece, on May 27, 2015.

Current Affairs winner

"In Search of the European Dream" series

Angelos Tzortzinis, Greece

Doctors and paramedics try to revive a baby after a boat with refugees and migrants sunk while attempting to reach the Greek island of Lesbos from Turkey, on October 28, 2015. At least five migrants including three children, died on October 28, after four boats sank between Turkey and Greece.

Staged winner

In this project, Alicata traces the history of photography through iconic images realized by the great masters, resorting to the use of a symbol of contemporary Western culture: Barbie.

Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Guy Bourdin, David Lachapelle, Mario Testino are some of the names which Alicata honors, studying carefully chosen shots and recreating a set built in detail to copy the original that inspired it.

Credit: Alberto Alicata/Courtesy 2016 Sony World Photography Awards

Staged winner

"Iconic B" series

Alberto Alicata, Italy

Credit: Alberto Alicata/Courtesy 2016 Sony World Photography Awards

People winner

"Nomadic Life Threatened on the Tibetan Plateau"

Kevin Frayer, Canada

Tibetan nomads face many challenges to their traditional way of life, including political pressures, forced resettlement by China's government, climate change and rapid modernization. The Tibetan Plateau, often called "the Roof of the World," is the world's highest and largest plateau.

Portraiture winner

"Ebola Survivors"

Marcello Bonfanti, Italy

Monjama Moussa, 25, is a married mother of four children, from Goderich in Sierra Leone. She had a coal shop and she contracted ebola from a supplier. After being treated, she went back home, but was turned away by her family, who considered her healing as a sign of demon possession. She has lost her family and her job. Moussa now works as cleaner at the Emergency Surgical Hospital in Goderich.

Credit: Marcello Bonfanti/Courtesy 2016 Sony World Photography Awards

Daily Life - 3rd place

"Running Away with the Circus"

Stephanie Sinclair, U.S.

There are more than 300 people with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus blue unit, representing 25 different countries and speaking everything from Russian to Arabic to Guarani. A few travel in cars and trailers, but a majority, 270, live on the trains. Most come from multi-generation circus families, representing thousands of years of circus history. The men and women all say that only circus people like them can understand the lifestyle.

Sports winner

Portraits of the silver medal winner just after losing the final at the Zealand boxing Championships held in Copenhagen in March.

Credit: Nikolai Linares/Courtesy 2016 Sony World Photography Awards

Sport winner

"Migrant Tomatoes"

Francesco Amorosino, Italy

Once a year Italian families make tomato sauce at home, cooking and canning a huge amount of vegetables. Tons of tomatoes are grown in the fields of the south of the country and harvested by about 19,000 laborers, paid 1 or 2 euros for each filled box. Many of those involved in the harvest are immigrants.

On the tomatoes, the photographer saw the fingerprints of those who had harvested them, imagining the hours spent in the sun, the hope, the desire to work. Since then, he hasn't watched the sauce with the same eyes.

Current Affairs - 3rd place

"Baltimore Uprising"

Andrew Burton, U.S.

Daquan Green, age 17, sits on the curb while riot police stand guard near the CVS pharmacy that was set on fire the day before during rioting after the funeral of Freddie Gray, on April 28, 2015 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Sport - 2nd place

Elite gymnasts train at a gym in Copenhagen 20 hours a week to become the best.

Credit: Jens Juul/Courtesy 2016 Sony World Photography Awards

Daily Life winner

"The Curse pf Coal"

Espen Rasmussen, Norway

Coal used to be the gold of West Virginia. As the economy has shifted, coal prices went down and new environmental regulations were put in place, coal has become a curse for many now. In 1940, 140,000 worked in the mountains, today only about 15,000 are left in the coal business. Drugs, pills, alcohol and violence are prevalent and young people are struggling to find work, forcing many to move.

Still Life - 3rd place

Staged - 2nd place

"Picasso's Women"

Cristina Vatielli, Italy

Dora Maar (Henriette Theodora Markovic) was an independent and anti-conformist woman and photographer. She met Picasso in 1936. The painter kept her away from photography and pushed her into painting (a field in which he was the unquestioned king). Living in the shadow of the greatest artist of the time, Maar suffered from self-doubt and depression throughout her nine-year liaison with Picasso. The painter defined her as the most intelligent of all of his women and the one that made him laugh the most. Despite this, he always pictured her as the crying woman. Maar found herself abandoned by Picasso, and for this reason suffered of a nervous breakdown; she subsequently undertook electroshock therapy for three weeks in a psychiatric hospital. She said "after Picasso there is only God."

Credit: Cristina Vatielli/Courtesy 2016 Sony World Photography Awards

Contemporary Issues - 2nd place

"China's Coal Dependence a Challenge for Climate"

Kevin Frayer, Canada

A history of heavy dependence on burning coal for energy has made China the source of nearly a third of the world's total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the toxic pollutants widely cited by scientists and environmentalists as the primary cause of global warming. China's government has publicly set 2030 as a deadline to reach the country's emissions peak, and data suggest the country's coal consumption is already in decline.

Conceptual - 3rd place

"Moving Portraits"

Barbaros Kayan, Turkey

Hundreds of thousands have left their homes in Kobane, Syria because of the war to escape to Turkey where they have settled in refugee camps. In this series, the photographer first visited the camps and then the refugees' neighborhoods and homes. He replaced their body forms with the city landscapes the refugees will return to.